Final Word from Friday, July 27, 2007
It might be time for John Le Carré to bring back George Smiley. The spymaster was retired at the end of the Cold War, but the cloak-and-dagger days are back. The Brits and Soviets (sorry, Russians) are again expelling each other's diplomats, and Putin said this week that Moscow will have to step up its spying again. This comes as Czechoslovakia's most-famous spy, Karel Koecher, is enjoying a revival. He still can't find a decent job, because no one wants to hire a KGB mole who infiltrated the CIA and who was later recruited (unsuccess-fully?) by the CIA as a double agent. But he's getting lots of media attention. His most interesting revelation is that it was none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, his mentor at Colum-bia, who recommended him to the CIA. What? The U.S.'s foremost Cold War expert wasn't able to spot a Soviet mole? Brzezinski is now one of the biggest critics of both Putin and Bush. Discrediting him a bit would serve both their purposes.[Czech Republic United States of American USA USSR Union Central Intelligence Agency University George W. Vladimir espionage]